What the heat wave in Britain has revealed

The New Neo Posted on by

When I first read the headline of this article—“‘Millennia of human activity’: heatwave reveals lost UK archaeological sites”—I imagined something like a fantasy movie in which some hulking ancient ruin comes heaving out of the ground, astounding the watching crowd.

But that’s not what’s actually happening, which is this sort of thing:

Those are what’s called scorch marks:

Lost sites have been turning up all over Britain and Ireland, ploughed flat at ground level but showing up as parch marks from the air, in areas where grass and crops grow at different heights, or show in different colours, over buried foundations and ditches. A treasure trove of discoveries, including ancient field boundaries, lost villages, burial mounds and military structures, was revealed on Wednesday, recorded during the summer by aerial archaeologists flying over the landscape for Historic England…

Among dozens of sites revealed in Cornwall were an unusual prehistoric settlement surrounded by concentric ditches at Lansallos, and an iron age settlement surrounded by a circular ditch with marks of other circular and rectangular structures within one field at St Ive – evidence of continuity of settlement over at least 4,000 years.

What is believed to be a Roman farm, with buildings, fields and paddocks, has showed up at Bicton in Devon, and at Stogumber in Somerset four bronze and iron age farms have been spotted, one with signs of having been abandoned and a new settlement built on top.

It’s as though these structures and settlements had been written in invisible ink, and the drought was the catalyst for revealing the messages they hold. Excavation will further reveal them.

It’s interesting, too, that in a slight parallel, some invisible inks are revealed by the process of being heated, which usually turns them brown.

Another study on low-carb diets…

The New Neo Posted on by

…comes up with some interesting results that might disturb advocates of low-carb diets:

In a large cohort of adults living in four diverse US communities, with more than two decades of follow-up, mid-life dietary patterns marked by both low carbohydrate (<40% of energy from carbohydrate) and high carbohydrate (>70% of energy from carbohydrate) consumption were associated with increased mortality risk and shorter residual lifespan, with minimum risk observed with 50–55% of energy from carbohydrate. These findings reflect a U-shaped relationship between carbohydrate intake and mortality, and were corroborated by data from other North American, European, Asian and multinational cohorts, combined as part of a meta-analysis. However, low carbohydrate dietary patterns that replaced energy from carbohydrate with energy from animal-derived protein or fat were associated with greater risk. However, this association was reversed when energy from carbohydrate was replaced with plant-derived protein or fat.

I’ve written many times about my own experiences with low-carb diets, as regular readers here probably know, but the summary version is that I hate them for many reasons, including a very important one: I don’t lose weight on them. I also don’t like eating a lot of meat or cheese of any kind, and it makes me feel lousy. Really lousy. Among other things, my digestive system shuts down. It’s just a miserable, unproductive experience for me.

But I know a lot of people love and swear by them, and that they say that their bloodwork improves immensely and they feel and look better. More power to you, folks.

I believe that low-carb advocates will shrug off the findings mentioned in that quote about the study, for the following reasons and probably more:

—they’ll say the low-carb diets studied don’t reflect the type of diet they advocate.

—they’ll say that studies of diet and health that rely on self-report of food intake have inherent flaws

—they’ll say that other studies don’t find the same results, so this one is an outlier (I’m not sure, though, that the other studies measured all-cause mortality, which this one appears to do, so it may be apples and oranges).

One thing I have noticed, here and on other sites, is that some low-carb advocates treat it almost as a religion, and they proselytize. I cannot tell you how often, when I write any sort of post on the topic of these diets, people come here and ignore what I’ve written about how low-carb diets have worked (or not worked) on me in the past. There’s also a tendency among advocates to become hyper-rigid about diet.

What’s more, some of the historic arguments about paleo don’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Humans have been eating grains and fruits and vegetables and cereals for many thousands of years—different forms of the foodstuffs, to different extents, in different societies—and I think it stands to reason that there has been quite a bit of evolution and natural selection to deal with that since the earlier time when paleo diets supposedly were dominant.

But I’m not trying to talk anyone out of something that seems to work for that person. I think we still know very little about optimal diets, and I also think that each individual reacts very differently to diets and we especially don’t know how to tailor dietary instructions to the individual.

Aretha Franklin has died

The New Neo Posted on by

She had a troubled life in certain ways, but boy could that woman ever sing.

Most people think of “Respect” as Aretha Franklin’s anthem, and I suppose it was. I liked a great many of her songs very much—including that one—but this one had a special place in my heart:

RIP, Aretha Franklin.

What I saw today in Tuscany

The New Neo Posted on by

San Gimignano is a lovely place, but not quite as lovely when all the parking lots are full and you must circle around and around the town loop looking for a space to open up in one of the lots, along a lot of other circling cars. And it’s really really hot climbing up those hills. On the other hand, if you can climb in a patch of shade, it feels much better.

This is the beautiful setting:

And one of the entrances to the town taken from in-town:

Brennan’s security clearance revoked

The New Neo Posted on by

Good. The only bad part about the news is that it gives Brennan the golden opportunity to be in the limelight again, and to fume against Trump—his favorite position and his favorite occupation.

I really don’t question this decision of Trump’s, which is one of those overdetermined moves:

“Erratic” properly describes [Brenna’s] shrill and often mindless attacks on Trump. Moreover, his hatred of the president is so palpable that one can easily imagine him using access to secret information to harm the administration.

To be sure words like “erratic,” “shrill,” “mindless,” and “hatred” are not objective terms…

However, in Brennan’s case, objective factors also support Trump’s decision. Brennan was caught lying about breaking into the computers of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s staff. And, reportedly, he’s in jeopardy with the House Intelligence Committee for lying to Congress about the anti-Trump dossier that collection of falsehoods gathered by partisans for partisan purposes. Indeed, Brennan appears to have played a significant role in promoting the dossier as a weapon to be used against Donald Trump.

A guy like that really ought not have a security clearance…

Brennan, of course, is talking about how his freedom of speech is being curtailed as he gives interviews about the subject of how intimidating this could be. Well, he doesn’t seem at all intimidated and it probably wouldn’t intimidate most people who are no longer in jobs that require such clearance. It also might serve notice to subsequent heads of the CIA or ex-heads of the CIA not to leak or to lie, or to demonstrate extreme partisanship and animus against a president, and still expect to get access to sensitive and confidential information (after retiring) that they will then try to use to destroy that president. Works for me, no matter who the president might be. No president owes such people anything at that point. And they remain perfectly free to talk.

But there’s another factor regarding Brennan and his clearance, one I discussed at some length in this previous post, which can be summarized as the fact that I think Brennan should never have gotten a security clearance from the CIA in the first place, much less become head of that organization.

I also believe—as I wrote in this post—that former officials should not automatically retain their security clearances after leaving office.

Why socialism is okay now (and, did you even actually listen to some of the claptrap that emanates from Bernie Sanders’ mouth?)

The New Neo Posted on by

Seems that socialism is no longer a dirty word these days in the US as long as you call it “democratic socialism.” How did socialism get rehabilitated?

I suppose that enough kids have finally matured who got little at school to counter the idea of socialism (or who actually heard it touted), and who don’t personally remember Communism and the Cold War. They think there’s something very nice about socialism; can’t we all just be more equal?

And then in 2016 the candidacy of Bernie Sanders legitimized it. Grandpa the socialist was surprisingly attractive to a lot of young people. He also made the Democratic primaries far more interesting than they otherwise would have been.

I believe that initially Sanders was mostly there to give Hillary Clinton enough competition to stop the Democratic race from being such a big snoozefest that no one paid attention. He wasn’t expected to be competitive–old white Jewish socialist guy–but when he appeared to be developing into a serious challenge to Clinton, it was probably panic time for the Democratic party establishment, who set about making sure he didn’t actually get the nomination. They had no intention of letting him do that, and it didn’t happen (superdelegates, anyone?).

But Bernie’s candidacy was the gift that kept on giving to the growing leftist wing of the party, because his popularity let the Democratic Party know what they hadn’t known up till that point and probably didn’t see coming, either: that it was now possible for them to claim the mantle of socialism and give it voice. No need to hide any more—although they may be a bit premature on that.

If you take a trip back in time, Bernie Sanders used to be quite cagey and secretive about the socialist that he undoubtedly was and is. I find these quotes pretty extraordinary in their open admission of deception:

Sanders, 73, has been preaching socialism for nearly half a century, and he cites Eugene Debs, the five-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, as his hero. But he hasn’t always embraced the label.

“I myself don’t use the word socialism,” he said in 1976 in the Vermont Cynic, a student publication at the University of Vermont, “because people have been brainwashed into thinking socialism automatically means slave-labor camps, dictatorship and lack of freedom of speech.”

Brainwashed, eh?

Here’s one of my favorites:

“I’ve stayed away from calling myself a socialist,” Sanders said in the Boston Globe in the aftermath of his win in ‘81, “because I did not want to spend half my life explaining that I did not believe in the Soviet Union or in concentration camps.”

Wouldn’t want to actually have to answer any questions about where leftism has so often led, would we?

And here’s Bernie’s definition of socialism. You can see where that “democratic” label came from in the recent move to call it “democratic socialism”:

All that socialism means to me, to be very frank with you, is democracy with a small ‘d.’ I believe in democracy, and by democracy I mean that, to as great an extent as possible, human beings have the right to control their own lives. And that means that you cannot separate the political structure from the economic structure. One has to be an idiot to believe that the average working person who’s making $10,000 or $12,000 a year is equal in political power to somebody who is the head of a large bank or corporation. So if you believe in political democracy, if you believe in equality, you have to believe in economic democracy as well.”

You see? Socialism is just economic democracy, my friends. Nothing to fear.

In case the Congo didn’t have enough troubles already…

The New Neo Posted on by

…now there’s a new ebola epidemic. So far this one seems to involve a higher percentage of health care workers than previous epidemics.

But now there are more tools to deal with ebola than ever before. There seems to be a vaccination that helps, for example:

…[T]he WHO is continuing its strategy of contact tracing for vaccination, with more than 600 potential contacts already identified. Ghebreyesus said that 260 have already been vaccinated, including some from cities, but that vaccinators are being moved from Guinea and hope to be on the ground today in Bene and Mangina. Healthcare workers have also started to be vaccinated, he added.

Ghebreyesus noted that in addition to vaccines, five people were treated with a monoclonal antibody, and he characterized those who received the treatment as doing “well.”

Good.

Tuscany impressions

The New Neo Posted on by

They seem to love the roundabout concept here in Tuscany. I think roundabouts are abominations, but I’ll forgive the Italians their rondaboutphilia because this is nevertheless a great place to visit.

Many people in yesterday’s thread mentioned the Italian expertise at industrial design. Agreed, except for one thing—the toilet in my hotel. Anyone other than a giant is insecurely perched up so high that their feet don’t come near touching the ground. And instead of being relatively flat, the seat itself sticks up in a kind of ridge, which has the effect of heavily digging into any body parts making contact with it.

I was at a neighborhood pot luck dinner here on Wednesday evening that involved the neighborhood of the enormous rented villa at which some of my relatives are staying (a residence to which I’m slated to transfer myself this Saturday, with a view that reminds me very much of Napa, California). It turns out that Italian potluck has much the same menu as potlucks in my New England experience: heavy on the couscous salads, the pasta salads, and the green salads.

But I’m well aware that Italians know how to cook and they know how to eat. I’m looking forward to visiting a few restaurants for a lot more than pasta salad.

Tomorrow I do my first sightseeing. The plan is to visit this place, then back to the family villa for a little dinner for about 25.

Tales of the traveling Neo

The New Neo Posted on by

Here I am in—Italy!

Why Italy? Well, why not.

But August is not the time to visit Italy I hear you say. It’s awfully hot, and besides the whole country is on vacation.

True, but here I am. I didn’t choose the date. It’s a family event and a reunion of sorts, in Tuscany. I’m not the greatest of travelers, especially long distances, and I’m still recovering from what turned out to be about a 24-hour trip and jet lag. Not to mention the fact that the hotel I’ll be in till Saturday keeps throwing me offline and not letting me get back on. I’d planned a lot of already-prepared posts for you as well as some new stuff. But the best laid schemes o’ mice and men…and bloggers…

I assume this will all get straightened out soon, and I’ll be posting and vacationing at the same time. But for the moment please bear with me and keep checking back.

One or two observations about Italy—

I landed in Rome in a thunder and lightning storm. Fun! But the enormous airport there was a model of efficiency, at least in my experience. The international arrivals building was loaded with people from all over the world, pulling their wheeled luggage and hurrying wherever they were hurrying, and the helpful signs at the airport were numerous, keyed with lots of graphics and arrows that actually turned out to point to the destination they said they were pointing to, amazingly enough. The signs were in Italian and English for the most part, but as I said the graphics would help even people who don’t speak either language (fortunately for me, I’m adequate in one).

The luggage came immediately, and contrary to rumor and fear, it was all there. But it was the bathroom sinks in the airport that I loved the best. Each one was large and had three operations for the weary traveler. The first was a faucet that turned on automatically, something most airport faucets do these days except ordinarily more than half of them are malfunctioning. These functioned perfectly. Likewise, each sink had its own automatic soap dispenser to the right of the faucet, working perfectly as well. But the piece de resistance (how do you say that in Italian?) was the individual hand drier to the faucet’s left that sent forth a small but intense blast of hot air that was focused and effective, drying the hands in about three seconds flat.

Beautiful.

More anon! It’s better than endless chatter about the most pressing issue of the day, Trump and Omarosa, isn’t it? But that’s a low bar.

Oh, and Italy? Beautiful, too.

Let’s have a little traveling music

The New Neo Posted on by

Surprise! I’ve been traveling for close to 24 hours. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow or later tonight (well, not all about it, but something about it).

I still plan to post regularly during my trip, on the usual eclectic mix. But every now and then I may throw in a bit about where I am and what I’m doing. I’m not turning into a travel blogger, though.

Till later…

The left and the mullahs: the collectivist left and the collectivist right

The New Neo Posted on by

In certain times and places, the left and the religious fundamentalist right become closely aligned—if only temporarily, as they were during the Iranian revolution of 1979. Their togetherness was puzzling to me at the time, but I later decided that it was an alliance of convenience in which each group thought it was using the other to effect the downfall of the Shah, and each thought it and it alone would be the eventual winner.

Turned out the mullahs won that bet.

In a recent re-reading of Stephen Hicks’ Explaining Postmodernism I came across some passages that described other ways in which these two extremes—which appear to be opposites but in many ways are not—resemble each other. In this passage, Hicks isn’t discussing Iran (he was mostly speaking of Europe), but he writes:

What links the [collectivist political] Right and the Left is a core set of themes: anti-individualism, the need for strong government, the view that religion is a state matter (whether to promote or suppress it), the view that education is a process of socialization, ambivalence about science and technology, and strong themes of group violence, conflict, and war. Left and Right have often divided bitterly over which themes have priority and over how they should be applied. Yet for all their differences, both the collectivist Left and the collectivist Right have consistently recognized a common enemy: liberal capitalism, with its individualism, its limited government, its separation of church and state, its fairly consistent view that education is not primarily a matter of political socialization, and its persistent Whiggish optimism about prospects for peaceful trade and cooperation between members of all nations and groups…

While the details are messy the broad point is clear: the collectivist Right and the collectivist Left are united in their major goals and in identifying their major opposition…

…liberalism did not penetrate deeply into the main lines of political thinking in Germany…By the early twentieth century, the dominant issues for most Continental political thinks were not whether liberal capitalism was a viable option—but rather exactly when it would collapse—and whether Left or Right collectivism had the best claim to being the socialism of the future.

Those last paragraphs are about Europe (and there’s much much more in Hicks’ book). But I think you can see that with a few tweaks they apply to Iran as well. And not just to Iran. Liberal capitalism—the Enlightenment, Locke and the rest—did not take hold in most of the world. It did take hold in much of the West, although to different degrees in different areas. I would say that although Britain was an early stronghold, the US surpassed it. It made advances in some former British colonies as well, to a very slightly lesser degree than in the US (Canada and Australia come to mind, with Australia beating out Canada). France and other Western European countries were devoted to a lesser extent, and Germany to a far lesser extent, as we can see from the events of the first half of the twentieth century. It is possible that eastern Europe, having had the Left collectivist experience forced on it, has now recoiled by becoming more liberal capitalist than some of western Europe.

In Iran the collectivist Left and the collectivist Right duked it out, and to the extent that liberal capitalism had been imposed by the Shah (and it was not very liberal, either) it died. There was very little fertile soil in which it might have rooted, but the collectivist Left and Right combined to destroy whatever buds might have been growing. Now? I think the youth of Iran have absorbed a certain degree of desire for liberal capitalism, gleaned from looking at the world as much as they’ve been allowed to. But there really is no strong tradition of it there, and that’s one of the difficulties.